Predictable
by Idan
Summary: "He didn't mind her trying to figure him out—that was flattering, even. But he didn't want her thinking she'd succeeded." A tag of sorts to Little Red Corvette. Fluff alert: this is so fluffy it might float away while you're reading it.


**Disclaimer**: If you think I own The Mentalist or anything to do with it, you should seek help. Immediately.

**Summary**: "He didn't mind her trying to figure him out—that was flattering, even. But he didn't want her thinking she'd succeeded." A tag of sorts to Little Red Corvette. Fluff alert: this is so fluffy it might float away while you're reading it.

**Author's Note: **This has no nutritional value whatsoever, but it wouldn't leave me alone so I figured I'd better post it before Red Barn airs.

**Predictable**

_"Are you asking me what I would do?"_

_"No. I already know the answer."_

In the days after Volker's arrest, Jane enjoyed watching Lisbon savor her triumph, watching for signs that she was troubled by what she had done to get it. Though she'd let him get away with worse, she'd held on to the moral high ground with a white-knuckled grip when it came to her own behavior. Until Volker. Jane found that he hated the smarmy little psychopath even more for taking that from her.

Still, having come over to the dark side, his apprentice had done very well. Jane was proud of her. She'd needed very little prompting on his part. Obviously she'd been paying more attention over the years than he'd given her credit for. She could even accurately predict his behavior in certain circumstances, while surprising him in others.

That gave him an unsettling sense of having lost the upper hand. Lisbon was one of the few constants in his life, and if she became erratic, his whole existence could become unpleasantly unstable. He was amused by her lying to judges and even blackmailing Ardilles, but mysterious hammers in desks and listening to his conversation with Lorelei after agreeing not to made him uneasy. He needed to pay a little more attention to her.

The smug smile she'd taken to directing at him when she thought he wasn't looking was also unsettling. He didn't mind her trying to figure him out—that was flattering, even. But he didn't want her thinking she'd succeeded.

Obviously, corrective action was called for.

mmm

The next morning found Jane dozing on his couch in the bullpen. He woke up at the sound of familiar footsteps in the hallway, unsurprised when they approached. Keeping his eyes closed, he decided to see if she could tell whether he was really sleeping.

"Good morning," Lisbon said, sounding obnoxiously cheerful. "I brought muffins, but if you want a blueberry one, you'd better get it before Rigsby gets here."

Jane heard a bag rustle and reached out without opening his eyes, grabbing it out of her hand. Then he sat up and extracted a blueberry muffin, smiling at her. "Good morning, Lisbon, and thank you. What's the occasion?"

"I just felt like muffins," she said, sitting down beside him and grabbing the bag back to fish out one for herself.

He was pleased by the thought of Lisbon yielding to an impulse, and he realized that the best way to prove he wasn't predictable was to give in to one of his own. So he did.

Her lips tasted like cherries, from her lip gloss, he thought. But he only had a moment to process it before her gasp of surprise gave him the opportunity to slip his tongue into her mouth and taste the lemon poppyseed muffin she'd apparently had on the way to work.

Lisbon responded to his kiss the way she always did when he blindsided her: first she froze, then she tentatively played along, and finally she gave in. He smiled as she began to kiss him back in earnest, sliding his free hand into her glorious silky hair. If he was going to start yielding to impulse, why stop at just one, he thought to himself. He wondered how impulsive he could convince Lisbon to be before they were inevitably interrupted.

But he didn't get a chance to pursue that train of thought, because the elevator ding was clearly audible in the quiet office, followed by two sets of footsteps headed their way. Lisbon pulled away from him sharply, jerking to her feet and dropping the bag of muffins onto the couch, her lips parted in shock as she stared at him. Then she turned and nearly ran to her office, ignoring Cho's greeting.

"What's up?" Cho asked Jane.

"Muffins," Jane held up the bag and plastered on his best guileless smile.

Cho shrugged and took the bag. "Good thing I got here before Rigsby then."

mmm

Lisbon hid out in her office most of the morning, which Jane thought was a bit of an overreaction. When noon came and went without her making a move to get lunch, he seized the excuse to invade her space. "Lunch, Lisbon? Since you brought breakfast, it's my turn to buy."

She didn't even try to meet his eyes, focusing on her computer screen. "No thanks."

"Oh come now. You have to eat," he wheedled.

"I'll grab something later. You go ahead," she said. He was proud of how calm she managed to sound while her face was betraying so much turmoil. Apparently his impulsive kiss had made more of an impact than he'd intended. Or was it her response that was bothering her? Ah, yes. Kissing in the office was definitely a no-no as far as she was concerned. Kissing him was also, in her mind, a very bad idea. Doing both probably had her thinking she should run straight to the nearest mental health facility and check herself in.

"You should relax," he told her sincerely. "There's nothing for you to worry about."

That at least made her look at him. "I wasn't worried about anything."

How could she still be such a rotten liar after all the practice she got because of him? "Right," he chuckled. "You haven't been hiding in here all morning—"

"It's called working, Jane. You should try it sometime," she interrupted.

"—because you know you can't take back that kiss and you can't figure out how to move past it without talking about it, which you'd pretty much rather cut out your tongue than do."

She gave him the resigned look he was used to, but it had a shade of despair to it he had never seen and intensely disliked. "All right. Let's talk, then," she sighed.

"There's no need. That was simply an aberration, Lisbon. I yielded to an impulse. There's no need for you to try to derive any deeper meaning." Which was bullshit, but he judged it was what she wanted to hear.

He might have misjudged, he realized when her expression became outraged. "You were messing with me?"

"No." If he said he'd done it to see what she would do, she would throw something at him. Something heavy and sharp, by preference. "I've wanted to kiss you for a while now. Thanking you for a lovely blueberry muffin seemed like a good opportunity. But now that I've had my morning tea, I realize that I made a mistake, and so I apologize for overstepping the bounds of our friendship."

She blinked in confusion. He wondered if she was having the most trouble processing his desire to kiss her, his admission of error, or his apology. They were all, he had to admit, fairly novel concepts.

"Well...well, good," she managed to say. "I trust it's a mistake you won't repeat."

Oh, that had cost her to say, he thought. It was so obvious she wanted to be kissed again, though not right at the moment. "I assure you, I will do my very best to avoid kissing you in the office, no matter how kissable you may look at any given moment," he said. "Relax, Lisbon. This isn't part of some cunning scheme to seduce you."

"Good," she said firmly, though her eyes said exactly the opposite.

He paused in the doorway long enough to grin at her and say, "You'll never see that one coming."

Whistling as he walked down the hall, he treasured the memory of the stunned look on her face. Twice in one day: that was probably a record. And she wouldn't be giving him any more smug looks, because she now knew she had a long way to go before she could claim to have figured him out.

Mission accomplished, he thought. In more ways than one, because now that he knew what a delightful kisser she was, he planned to do it again.

At the least predictable moment.


End file.
